CRM 1300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin, Donald Marshall, Jr.
13 Sep 2015
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Document Summary
Wrongful convictions tend to involve a number of errors or mistakes, often by more than one agent of the criminal justice system. Some of the main factors that contribute to wrongful convictions include: Psychological research shows that due to normal deficiencies in human memory, eyewitness identification is inherently unreliable. We tend to think we have a better memory than we actually do. Therefore, memory is a factor leading to wrongful convictions. Many times the evidence is coming from witnesses. So if these people aren"t sure what they are seeing, that could create many problems. It occurs for several reasons, including: suggestive police interviewing occurs when the police communicate to eyewitnesses which subsequently influences and ultimately contaminates their testimony. In canada, this has led to a number of wrongful convictions. If the police give the witnesses positive feedback, they will be more certain about their choice and less unsure.
